• Marissa Goldstein and her husband traveled to Vietnam for work in 2016 and decided to move there soon after.
• Now, a mother of two sets of twins, Goldstein says her family of six is happily settled in Ho Chi Minh City.
• The city's low costs and kid-friendly culture make family life easier — though international school fees are high.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marissa Goldstein, a 40-year-old entrepreneur from the Boston area who lives in Ho Chi Minh City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2016, my husband and I flew to Vietnam with our 1-year-old twins and two bags. We told everyone we'd be back in three months.

Ten years later, we have four kids — two sets of twins — and a life in Ho Chi Minh City that I wouldn't trade. We've taken our kids to about 50 countries and spend summers with our families in Boston, then come back to the chaos of a city we love.

Asia had my heart long before Vietnam

I grew up outside Boston. I studied communications at the University of Maryland, and a trip to Thailand during my junior year abroad was my first taste of Asia. I fell in love.

My husband and I met in high school and married after I graduated. I worked in PR and sales, then got my MBA at Babson College. Around 2015, there was an opportunity to help US companies diversify their supply chains away from China, so we started The Timroon Group, a manufacturing and sourcing company focused on Vietnam.

Being home with two babies overwhelmed me. Even though we had an incredible support system, living with my parents in a six-bedroom house in the suburbs. I quickly realized that staying home wasn't for me.

When traveling, though, I felt unstoppable. We headed to Ho Chi Minh City the day after their first birthday.

Vietnam won me over through my kids

I loved it right away, especially how people treat children. We'd bring the twins to dinners and big brunches, and the staff would take them and play. I felt really safe. Within a month, we had friends from all over the world. Three months turned into 18.

When the twins were 18 months old, we took an overnight train to Sapa in northern Vietnam. Hmong women were selling their textiles, and I decided to start my own travel accessories brand, working with women artisans. On that same trip, we decided to have one more child. Soon after, we found out we were having twins again.

In January 2020, we returned to Boston, where I grew Raffi Nova, my textile accessories brand. But by 2022, my husband's business was picking up, and we had the itch to return to Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City works for a family of 6

We live about 15 minutes from the city center. There are a lot of foreigners living here, several international schools, and everything is within a 10-minute drive.

There are good doctors and hospitals, Michelin Guide-rated street food, French bakeries, and plenty of activities for the kids, from taekwondo to tennis.

The cost of living is much lower, though school and housing add up. Housing in our area ranges from about $1,500 a month for a smaller apartment to around $10,000 for a villa. We're somewhere in between, in a five-bedroom serviced apartment.

We spend about $1,000 a month on groceries, buying fruit and vegetables at the local market, and spending more on meat and imported food. A latte at a cute, bougie café is about $2, so I treat my friends to coffee without thinking twice.

We have a live-out helper who we pay about $900 a month. She cleans, preps groceries, and helps with the kids. Health insurance for our family runs under $10,000 a year.

I get serious sticker shock when I go home in the summer. I take the kids out for bagels, and it's $100 or more.

Schooling is by far our biggest cost. International school fees in the city range from about $8,000 to $30,000 per child per school year. We're at the higher end, but we strongly believe in a good education.

With fees for four kids, we probably spend about the same as we would in the US, where we wouldn't have to pay for school. But there, we wouldn't eat out or travel as much.

Being far away is hard, but travel makes up for it

Both our big families live in the Boston suburbs.

There's also the weather: hot, hotter, and wet. In rainy season, it pours at school pickup every single day, even when you're sure it won't. The upside is that the kids need only one wardrobe all year.

I see Vietnam is our launchpad to the world.

Last spring, we spent a night in the jungle in Phong Nha, home to Vietnam's largest cave. We've been to Thailand about 20 times. Last February, we rented an RV and drove around New Zealand's South Island. On a trip to Sri Lanka, the kids learned to surf, and we stayed at a homestay in the mountains.

Traveling as six is hard. Most hotels don't allow four children in a room, and we can't fit in a regular car. Our best trips have never been at nice resorts. They're homestays, campsites, and RVs.

That's probably why this life suits us. I never wanted to say, "This is the house we'll live in for the next 50 years." Predictability scares me. I thrive in chaos, and with two sets of twins, there's always plenty of it — I wouldn't have it any other way.

• Viaano Spruyt first became a caregiver as a teenager when his father fell ill.
• After his father died, he moved to Australia to study and build a life there.
• Three years later, he returned home to be closer to family after his mother's health scare.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Viaano Spruyt, 29, founder of Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms. He is based in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I first became a caregiver when I was a teenager.

My dad had an incurable respiratory disease, and he was on an oxygen tank every day. He would get breathless after walking for just a few minutes and needed help with day-to-day living.

Back then, my mom was the sole breadwinner for the family, and my sister was too young to grasp what was going on.

As the oldest child and only son, I took responsibility for his daily care. I fed him his meals and brought him to appointments at hospitals around Singapore.

He passed away when I was 19. Several years later, when I was 22, I moved to the Gold Coast in Australia on a scholarship. I earned my bachelor's in psychology, the first step toward my ambition to become a clinical psychologist.

Over the next three years, I built a real life in Australia.

I had assimilated into the culture, was in a serious relationship, and was set to pursue a master's degree. I was also in the process of applying for permanent residency.

My family was always in the back of my mind. Still, I wanted to experience life outside Singapore, and I was in the midst of building the future I thought I would have.

The call that changed everything

Then one day, I was reminded what it meant to be so far from home.

My mom was walking to catch a bus to work when her knees suddenly gave way. She kept calling me for help, but I'd missed her calls.

Unable to walk, she ended up sitting alone, crying for hours. A kind stranger eventually called for help, and she was taken to a local hospital. She was wheelchair-bound for the next few weeks. Later, she told me she wished I'd been there.

My mom is now 61 and has advanced osteoarthritis in both knees, with severe cartilage loss, meniscus damage, and joint degeneration.

When I asked why she had called me rather than my younger sister, my mom said she didn't want to distract my sister from her final exams and internship. Still, I was the first person she thought to call for help, even from thousands of miles away.

That was the exact moment I knew I had to come home.

Seeing what happened to my mom brought me back to when my dad was ill. I didn't want to be on the other side of the world when my mom was dealing with a health issue.

It wasn't just my mom. My grandparents, now in their 80s, were also getting older, and I realized my family needed me.

I came home and started over

After my mom's incident, I gave up the plans I'd made in Australia and moved back to Singapore in 2022. That was probably the hardest decision I have ever made in my life.

My Australian girlfriend moved to Singapore for a few months to see if we could build a life here instead. But things didn't work out, and we eventually ended the relationship.

Since coming back, I haven't had much of a social life.

I ended up starting Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms, with my cofounder, Fabian. Starting a company was not the path I had spent my life working toward, but it became another passion.

At this stage, my life is very much centered on work and my family, with whom I live. I choose to have no other commitments outside those two things, which gives me some room to respond when my family needs support.

I make sure my mom gets the care she needs. I take her to the hospital and arrange her treatments. I do the same for my grandparents.

When I returned, my younger sister had just started university. I wanted her to focus on her studies, so I took on more of the day-to-day care for our family.

Once my mom is doing better, I hope to move to the US to grow my company with my cofounder, while my sister and I share responsibility for supporting her.

Coming back meant starting over in a lot of ways. However, I would make that decision again and again for my mom. Always.

• Leslie Hodgin and her husband had dreamed of moving abroad.
• They finally took the leap in January, deciding not to waste time in their 50s.
• Hodgin said the move was expensive and time-consuming, but she's been happy with their relocation.

This story is based on an interview with Leslie Hodgin, a 55-year-old marketing consultant who moved from the US to the Netherlands with her husband, John Lyman, 52. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Until 2026, I was living in Richmond, Virginia, with my husband and our cat.

My dad was in the Army, so I grew up all over the world, but Richmond is my adopted home. I lived there for about 10 years.

During that time, I got an offer to move to Seoul, South Korea, for my marketing job. My husband, John, and I were dating at the time. We got married one week before moving to Seoul for two years.

After the contract ended, we returned to the States. I love Richmond, but it did feel small after I had been in Korea.

Some events happened in both of our families that made us want to move abroad again sooner rather than later. My dad died. My husband's mom died. We had a couple of dear friends pass away. It was all very quick. And it made me think, "What are we waiting for? We don't have promises for tomorrow. Now is the time."

We don't have kids, so that wasn't holding us back. We had some money in the bank to move, which I know is a privilege. It was like, "Let's just go and live our lives. We shouldn't just keep hoping for someday because there may not be someday."

Moving to the Netherlands

John had gone to graduate school in the Netherlands, so we'd visited before. Through my work in advertising, I also had a fairly large network of people living there.

There's a visa for Americans called the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT) that allows freelancers and entrepreneurs to live in the Netherlands. It made the country seem like a great choice for us.

My husband works for himself, so it was easier for him to pick up and go anywhere. I started my own consulting business and left my agency. I knew there was an advertising community in the Netherlands, and I planned to freelance if my consulting business wasn't doing well.

My husband's dad is in his 90s, and my mom just turned 80. Moving far from them was probably the hardest part of the decision. I have a little guilt for that, but they're excited for us. I've promised my mom that I'll be home for any big family and important events.

That's a hard thing to do, but we felt it was right for us not to put our lives on hold.

Downsizing our lives

We moved in January. We did it in six months. We'd sold our house about a year before moving and were living in an apartment.

We decided to sell almost everything we owned to keep costs as low as possible. We shipped a half-crate over, which is quite small, so we had to get rid of a lot of stuff. We made close to $12,000 selling everything and used it to pay for the visas and help with some of the moving costs.

When we moved, we had nine suitcases, including a large piece of art. It was the largest oversize item that would fit on an airplane, and we had a special museum-packing company pack it. And our cat, of course, came on the plane with us.

We live in a two-bedroom apartment. It's an old, old building, but the apartment is newly renovated and has a patio.

We do feel lucky that we found a place because there is a housing shortage, and it's quite hard to find housing, particularly if you're American or from another country and you don't have Dutch income. We had to pay six months' rent upfront to secure our rental.

Life in Europe

It still feels surreal that we live here. My husband and I will frequently look at each other and say, "Oh my God, I can't believe that we're here." I never want to lose that feeling.

Business seems to be going really well. I also already knew some friends, but I've met so many amazing people through social media and made some great friends with our neighbors.

We love the sense of community. I appreciate the social contract that people afford each other in the Netherlands, from the opportunities the government provides to the respect and trust they show each other in general.

Recently, there was Open Monumentendag, or Open Monuments Day, with over a thousand monuments, churches, houses, farms, and historic places across the Netherlands open to the public for free. They do that every year, and it feels so special. It seems like every other weekend there's a festival.

There are always challenges. I'm very slow to pick up the language. Most people speak English, but I feel like I need to be better.

Moving also costs a lot more than you plan for. Even if you've tried to pad all the numbers, it still costs more than anticipated. Because our work was quite slow earlier in the year, we were like, "Gosh, what have we done?"

Our cost of living is fairly similar to what it was in the US. We don't have a car, so we don't have that expense. We would be paying double the rent in New York City for this same apartment.

A fresh start

I feel alive again. I felt a little stagnant in Richmond after living overseas, and moving has opened a lot of doors for my creativity.

On social media, I've documented trying one new thing a week. It's gotten us out to meet people and have some interesting experiences.

There's a risk in moving abroad. You have to get yourself over the hump, and you have to be brave.

Believe in yourself. If there's something you want to try, like moving overseas, going on a solo trip, or taking a cooking class, take a chance on yourself. You're never going to regret trying it if it doesn't work out. If you don't ever put yourself out there, you're going to look back in 20 years and be like, "That would have been great. Why didn't I give that a shot?"

• Moving to Barcelona from Los Angeles six years ago has come with a few culture shocks.
• At first, I struggled with businesses taking midday breaks and most shops being closed on Sundays.
• Eventually, I adapted. I now appreciate breaks and feel less pressure to optimize all my time.

I had 30 minutes left on my lunch break — just enough time to squeeze in a new errand before I had to get back to work. I had only recently moved to Barcelona, and I really needed to get an extra key made for my new roommate.

I typed "locksmith" into Google Maps and rushed out the door. I zigzagged through the narrow streets of my neighborhood trying to find the place. I checked my watch and saw I only had 20 minutes.

I picked up my pace and finally arrived at the small shop. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and reached for the door, but it wouldn't budge.

I peeked in through the window and saw no one. I knocked several times, and with each knock, I was becoming more frustrated, knowing I was losing precious time.

I opened Google Maps again to look up the store's phone number and saw its hours. I was dumbfounded; the store was open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then again from 5 to 8 p.m.

I was so angry — I had wasted my lunch break and didn't even accomplish what I set out to do.

At first, I thought Spain was making me less productive

Growing up in Los Angeles, I was used to being able to get pretty much anything done at almost any time of day. Between 24-hour supermarkets and medical offices with evening and weekend hours, everything there seemed built around convenience.

In Barcelona, though, rest seems to take priority. Many stores close during midday for a "siesta" or "nap" break, and a lot of businesses are not open on Sundays.

This new way of life meant I had to plan a lot more before trying to complete my to-do list. I couldn't simply squeeze in errands when they were convenient for me; I had to work around the schedules of those around me.

While living in LA, my favorite time to do grocery shopping was on Sunday. I could fill up my fridge and prepare for the week ahead, but that was no longer possible in Barcelona, as many big supermarkets are closed on Sundays.

During my first year in Spain, I'd often wake up lazily on Sunday mornings and wander over to the supermarket, only to see the doors closed, and I'd be hit with a reality check time and time again.

I wasn't living in the United States anymore, but I couldn't seem to shake off the faster pace of living I was accustomed to back in LA. I was finding it difficult to adapt and was worried that I would become less productive because I couldn't get things done on my time.

Soon, I realized that if I couldn't change the schedule, I had to start adjusting to it. I started splitting errands throughout the week when I knew places would be open, instead of trying to get them done all at once.

Giving myself space between these tasks actually helped me to be less forgetful and more efficient. I had to focus on one thing at a time, which helped me be more present.

In time, I realized it was doing the opposite

Now that I've been in Spain for about six years, I've gotten used to my new routines. And, in time, I found myself feeling less annoyed by the limited hours — I've actually begun to enjoy them.

For one, I felt less pressure to optimize all of my free time.

My lunch breaks became about savoring my meal and actually taking a break, sometimes reading a few chapters in a book or taking a walk in the park. Sundays became about sleeping in, enjoying time with my family, taking a long walk with my dog, and preparing for the week ahead simply by just having a relaxing afternoon.

Even though it wasn't necessarily my choice to stop doing errands whenever I pleased, it forced me to slow down. I started feeling calmer and less stressed, and surprisingly, even more productive.

I became more mindful of how I spent my time and allowed myself moments to truly rest, which gave me more energy to get things done. I still get everything on my to-do list completed; it just might take a little longer.

And before I leave my apartment, I always make sure to check the store hours just in case.